From the pillars of Eemaan is the belief in the Decree which comprises of 4 aspects; belief that Allah’s knowledge is all-encompassing, belief that everything is recorded in the preserved tablet, belief that Allah wills or permits the affairs to occur [i.e. nothing occurs without His permission], belief that Allah creates all affairs.

Regarding this aspect of eemaan the following question arose, and Shaikh al-Fawzaan answered:

Q: “Is it permissible to say that I bumped into/met someone by chance, if I had not made an appointment prior to meeting him?”

A: “If he intends by his statement “by chance” that he met the individual without having arranged a meeting prior to that, then it’s no problem. However, if his intention is that this meeting is an affair that was not decreed in the pre-decree and it was pure “chance” that caused it, then this is not permissible, this would be rejection of the pre-decree.

Although many of the muslims do not intend this [when they make such a statement], they do not intend rejection of the decree, they mean by “chance” i.e. they were not expecting this or they were not upon a pre-agreed arrangement to meet”.